[ed.note: I misinterpreted the Court’s ruling. The upshot is the same. But the reasoning is different. The State of Utah is saying that the district court isn’t moving quickly enough on its request for a stay so it’s jumping up to the appellate court with a request for extraordinary relief. The appellate court is saying, no, you’ve got to follow standard procedure. The request is premature. So they refused to take it up. The upshot is that the ruling is even more narrow and procedural than I realized.]

In practice that means that marriage certificates will continue to be issued tomorrow morning in the state and probably for some indeterminate period after that until the 10th Circuit rules on the state’s actual appeal.

What’s normally required to get such a stay is to show a likelihood of winning on appeal and a showing of “irreparable injury” from the ruling. So on its face the 10th Circuit’s denial would seem to suggest that the judges do not think the State of Utah is likely to prevail. But that is actually not clear. In their decision they note that the state did not even address these issues. So they are free to refile their petition and address those arguments.